Yesterday, I observed Ah Young Kim's Speaking Class at CIES. Today, she had the students create a script from an excerpt of an episode of Friends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =QAnIKtcs8Cs) and then perform it.
The clip is only a minute long and will give you a better picture of what he did in class. Ah Young Kim assigned them to do a dictocomp exercise where they obtained the main idea and then acted out the script as close as they could remember.
Hilarity ensued as I watched an all-male class all shy away from playing Phoebe's female role. It’s not ever day you get to watch a middle-aged Muslim man play the role of a New York yuppie.
The students were split into 3 tables of 3 apiece (there were 8 in the class, plus me, so I played a role). Ah Young Kim was very fluid in her approach. She wasn’t overloading or pushy, but I could tell that the students respected her. I think the respect came in because they knew she wouldn’t tolerate nonsense and they knew she had a plan.
She was clear in her expectations. Before they began the activity, she said, “Don’t focus on getting every word right. Try to focus on the main idea.”
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